"The Register" recently relayed a new finding about the Fimbul ice shelf (floating ice) in the Antarctic: It isn't melting overall and what melting there is comes from the bottom up rather than top down. That is of course very pesky for theories about the influence of atmospheric CO2.

It is so pesky that some of the Warmists involved have "replied" to the Register. Their reply in essence: "It is only one little pesky iceshelf and doesn't tell us about the whole of the Antarcric and, anyway, satellite measurements tell us that the rest of the Antarctic IS SO melting."

What they fail to mention is that the Fimbul shelf was deliberately chosen for its potential as a bellwether of the Antarctic as a whole. As Science Daily says:

"The Fimbul Ice Shelf -- located along eastern Antarctica in the Weddell Sea -- is the sixth largest of the forty-three ice shelves that dapple Antarctica's perimeter. Both its size and proximity to the Eastern Antarctic Ice Sheet -- the largest ice sheet on Earth, which if it melted, could lead to extreme changes in sea level -- have made the Fimbul Ice Shelf an attractive object of study"

Furthermore it is precisely the satellite measurements that the Fimbul data discredits. If the satellites were wrong about the Fimbul melting, what credibility do they have in telling us about the rest of the Antarctic?

The circling of the wagons concerned is below. The last sentence contains an interesting admission:

"Crafty boffins" have discovered "no ice is being lost at all" from the eastern Antarctic, the Register claimed in delighted tones on Monday.

Is it right? Not if you take a look at the research discussed by the IT blog - which has quite the penchant for publishing skeptic takes on new climate science. In fact, the research's lead author of told us it reveals a slower melt rate than previously thought for one ice shelf - the Fimbul ice shelf in Antarctica, but doesn't contradict or undermine research which shows the continent losing mass.

Under the headline 'Antarctic ice shelves not melting at all, new field data show'. the Register says:

"Twenty-year-old models which have suggested serious ice loss in the eastern Antarctic have been compared with reality for the first time - and found to be wrong, so much so that it now appears that no ice is being lost at all."

But what did the "boffins" do, and were their conclusions as dramatic as suggested?

Scientists drilled through the vast Fimbul Ice Shelf in eastern Antarctica to see if they could find out how fast the shelf's underside is melting and determine what is causing it. They concluded that models estimating that ice shelves in this region are losing significant amounts of ice are overestimating the melt rate. Ice shelves are floating bodies of ice that connect continental ice sheets like the East Antarctic ice sheet to the sea. They range in thickness from 50 metres or so up to a couple of hundred metres.

The scientists placed recording devices in the holes they drilled in the ice, which collected data over two years. They supplemented the data from the drilling with temperature, salinity and depth readings from sensors fitted to a group of elephant seals, which were being monitored as part of a project by biologists from the Norwegian Polar Institute.

It's a very clever way to get continuous data on conditions in the area - the seals spend the entire winter around the Fimbul ice shelf. So the data from their sensor packs gave the scientists nine months' worth of detailed information about circulation changes in the water surrounding the ice sheet - how warm and salty it was at different locations and depths.

According to the paper, the combined data from the sensors on the seals and the sensors in the ice helped the scientists understand in more detail how ocean circulation patterns heat the underside of the ice shelf, something which they note had been a "major source of uncertainty" in previous attempts to assess the melt rate of Antarctic ice shelves. Previous models simply assuming that the warm deep ocean alone caused ice shelves to melt from beneath, so this is a more sophisticated approach.

Says lead author of the sturdy Tore Hattermann: "It has been unclear, until now, how much warm deep water rises below the Fimbul Ice shelf, and previous ocean models, focusing on the circulation below the Fimbul Ice Shelf, have predicted temperatures and melt rates that are too high, suggesting a significant mass loss in this region that is actually not taking place as fast as previously thought."

Slow ice shelf melt doesn't mean Antarctica's not losing ice

Based on this, the Register concludes not only that "no ice is being lost" "in the Eastern Antarctic", but also that the research casts doubt on satellite observations of ice loss in the Antarctic full stop.

According to one of the authors of the research, this isn't the case, and the conclusion doesn't accord with other research from the region. On a continental scale, satellite data from the whole of Antarctica show the continent has been losing ice in recent years, and that the ice loss is accelerating. Most of this ice loss has been from the West Antarctic ice sheet, particularly from the Antarctic Peninsula. This study doesn't undermine those conclusions.

The East Antarctic Ice Sheet is losing ice as well - it had been thought to be reasonably stable, but more recent satellite measurements indicate the body has been losing ice since around 2006, particularly along parts of the coastline.

The new research reports that its findings agree with satellite data showing a "steady state mass balance" on the Fimbul ice sheet. This means that the ice on the shelves is currently building due to snowfall while it's also melting - processes that currently balance out. But the finding that there isn't any net ice loss at present on the ice shelf isn't the same as saying the ice isn't changing, or that there's no ice loss in the wider region.

Hatterman pointed out to us:

"In west Antarctica there is continuing rapid ice loss. Direct inflow of warm deep water is eroding some ice shelves there, such as the Pine Island glacier ice shelf"

Indeed, this paper shows that the inflow of warm deep waters is the primary control of Antarctic ice sheet loss. But, Hatterman says, the findings show it's important to differentiate between different Antarctic regions to fully understand what's happening to the continent. He adds:

"Our results do not change the overall conclusion that Antarctica is currently losing mass."

Finally, one of the authors of the paper has just responded directly to the Register, saying the story "misled" readers:

"Our results suggest that the rate at which *some* ice shelves are melting is less than previously thought. We did not question the overall conclusion that the Antarctic ice sheet as a whole is currently losing mass, which has consistently been concluded from several different methods.

A few days after our article was published, a piece profiling our work appeared at the Register of the UK written by Lewis Page entitled, 'Antarctic ice shelves not melting at all, new field data show.' This is the equivalent of turning the statement "the cancer is not as bad as we thought" into "you don't have cancer."

The severely distorted version of our study's conclusions then spread rapidly across the internet. It is a pattern that climate researchers have unfortunately observed many times, part of a widening gulf of misinformation between scientists and society.

As one of the authors of this study, I can only repeat: this is not what we said. We have been misrepresented, and you, the reader, have been misled by some of those who claim - as scientists and journalists both surely should - to provide you with facts."

It seems particularly difficult for outlets to accurately report ice shelf melt in the Antarctic. We've seen occasions when the research has been overplayed to suggest too much ice loss. Now it seems the balance has swung the other way.

1 comment:

Absolutely key point: Sea ice melts from the bottom, not the top. Given the air temperatures in the polar regions, there is little chance of surface ice thawing. However, the ocean is wet, oddly enough, because it is NOT frozen and therefore must have surface temperatures ABOVE freezing point.

Therefore, heat energy will flow from the nominally warmer water to the colder ice. Once enough energy has been transferred, the ice at that point will melt and "become one" with the "big blue wet thing. The cycle continues.

Icebergs do not melt from the top, but from the bottom. They regularly turn upside down as the oddly shaped bits on the bottom melt away.

Glaciers also generally melt from the bottom (the "rocky" side. That is because the pressure of the ice on the rock causes melting in a way similar to the effect of skates on a rink. There, you are not skating on ice, but a thin film of water that is created by the pressure from the skate changing the thaw point of the ice and thus generating a "slippery' film.

Behind our "Western" heart

As the name of this blog implies, we have always welcomed contributors and readers from anywhere in the Western world. But there is also something else behind the name. The blog originated in Australia and most contributions come from Australia. And that is very fitting. Australians have an unusually good awareness of events outside their own country. Australian newspapers feature news from Britain and the USA not as an afterthought but as a major part of their coverage. So Australians do tend to have a truly Western heart -- and you will see that in the posts appearing here. Events in Australia, Britain and the USA all feature frequently here, plus occasional coverage of other places, particularly Israel.

A primer in American politics for non-Americans:

SCOTUS is the Supreme Court of the United States, the highest court in the land

The "GOP" stands for "Grand Old Party" and refers to the Republican party. The GOP is at present center/Right, while the Democrats have been undergoing a steady drift Leftwards and now have policies similar to mainstream European Leftist parties.

The ideological identity of both parties has however been very fluid -- almost reversing itself over time. In the mid 19th century, the GOP was the party of big government and concern for minorities while the Democrats advertised themselves as "The party of the white man" -- an orientation that lasted into the mid 20th century in the South. The Democrats are still obsessed with race but have now flipped into support for discrimination AGAINST whites.

Was Pope Urban VIII the first Warmist? Below we see him refusing to look through Galileo's telescope. People tend to refuse to consider evidence— if what they might discover contradicts what they believe.

Some brief observations about Leftism

As a good academic, I first define my terms: A Leftist is a person who is so dissatisfied with the way things naturally are that he/she is prepared to use force to make people behave in ways that they otherwise would not.

Leftists think that utopia can be coerced into existence -- so no dishonesty or brutality is beyond them in pursuit of that "noble" goal

Leftism is fundamentally authoritarian. Whether by revolution or by legislation, Leftists aim to change what people can and must do. When in 2008 Obama said that he wanted to "fundamentally transform" America, he was not talking about America's geography or topography but rather about American people. He wanted them to stop doing things that they wanted to do and make them do things that they did not want to do. Can you get a better definition of authoritarianism than that?

And note that an American President is elected to administer the law, not make it. That seems to have escaped Mr Obama

That Leftism is intrinsically authoritarian is not a new insight. It was well understood by none other than Friedrich Engels (Yes. THAT Engels). His excellent short essay On authority was written as a reproof to the dreamy Anarchist Left of his day. It concludes: "A revolution is certainly the most authoritarian thing there is; it is the act whereby one part of the population imposes its will upon the other part by means of rifles, bayonets and cannon — authoritarian means"

Evan Sayet: The Left sides "...invariably with evil over good, wrong over right, and the behaviors that lead to failure over those that lead to success." (t=5:35+ on video)

Some useful definitions:

If a conservative doesn't like guns, he doesn't buy one. If a liberal doesn't like guns, he wants all guns outlawed. If a conservative is a vegetarian, he doesn't eat meat. If a liberal is a vegetarian, he wants all meat products banned for everyone. If a conservative is down-and-out, he thinks about how to better his situation. A liberal wonders who is going to take care of him. If a conservative doesn't like a talk show host, he switches channels. Liberals demand that those they don't like be shut down. If a conservative is a non-believer, he doesn't go to church. A liberal non-believer wants any mention of God and religion silenced. (Unless it's a foreign religion, of course!) If a conservative decides he needs health care, he goes about shopping for it, or may choose a job that provides it. A liberal demands that the rest of us pay for his.

Death taxes: You would expect a conscientious person, of whatever degree of intelligence, to reflect on the strange contradiction involved in denying people the right to unearned wealth, while supporting programs that give people unearned wealth.

America is no longer the land of the free. It is now the land of the regulated -- though it is not alone in that, of course

Envy is a strong and widespread human emotion so there has alway been widespread support for policies of economic "levelling". Both the USA and the modern-day State of Israel were founded by communists but reality taught both societies that respect for the individual gave much better outcomes than levelling ideas. Sadly, there are many people in both societies in whom hatred for others is so strong that they are incapable of respect for the individual. The destructiveness of what they support causes them to call themselves many names in different times and places but they are the backbone of the political Left

The large number of rich Leftists suggests that, for them, envy is secondary. They are directly driven by hatred and scorn for many of the other people that they see about them. Hatred of others can be rooted in many things, not only in envy. But the haters come together as the Left.

Leftists hate the world around them and want to change it: the people in it most particularly. Conservatives just want to be left alone to make their own decisions and follow their own values.

The failure of the Soviet experiment has definitely made the American Left more vicious and hate-filled than they were. The plain failure of what passed for ideas among them has enraged rather than humbled them.

Ronald Reagan famously observed that the status quo is Latin for “the mess we’re in.” So much for the vacant Leftist claim that conservatives are simply defenders of the status quo. They think that conservatives are as lacking in principles as they are.

The shallow thinkers of the Left sometimes claim that conservatives want to impose their own will on others in the matter of abortion. To make that claim is however to confuse religion with politics. Conservatives are in fact divided about their response to abortion. The REAL opposition to abortion is religious rather than political. And the church which has historically tended to support the LEFT -- the Roman Catholic church -- is the most fervent in the anti-abortion cause. Conservatives are indeed the one side of politics to have moral qualms on the issue but they tend to seek a middle road in dealing with it. Taking the issue to the point of legal prohibitions is a religious doctrine rather than a conservative one -- and the religion concerned may or may not be characteristically conservative. More on that here

The Leftist hunger for change to the society that they hate leads to a hunger for control over other people. And they will do and say anything to get that control: "Power at any price". Leftist politicians are mostly self-aggrandizing crooks who gain power by deceiving the uninformed with snake-oil promises -- power which they invariably use to destroy. Destruction is all that they are good at. Destruction is what haters do.

Leftists are consistent only in their hate. They don't have principles. How can they when "there is no such thing as right and wrong"? All they have is postures, pretend-principles that can be changed as easily as one changes one's shirt

A Leftist assumption: Making money doesn't entitle you to it, but wanting money does.

"Politicians never accuse you of 'greed' for wanting other people's money -- only for wanting to keep your own money." --columnist Joe Sobran (1946-2010)

I often wonder why Leftists refer to conservatives as "wingnuts". A wingnut is a very useful device that adds versatility wherever it is used. Clearly, Leftists are not even good at abuse. Once they have accused their opponents of racism and Nazism, their cupboard is bare. Similarly, Leftists seem to think it is a devastating critique to refer to "Worldnet Daily" as "Worldnut Daily". The poverty of their argumentation is truly pitiful

The Leftist assertion that there is no such thing as right and wrong has a distinguished history. It was Pontius Pilate who said "What is truth?" (John 18:38). From a Christian viewpoint, the assertion is undoubtedly the Devil's gospel

"If one rejects laissez faire on account of man's fallibility and moral weakness, one must for the same reason also reject every kind of government action." - Ludwig von Mises

Because of their need to be different from the mainstream, Leftists are very good at pretending that sow's ears are silk purses

Among people who should know better, Leftism is a character defect. Leftists HATE success in others -- which is why notably successful societies such as the USA and Israel are hated and failures such as the Palestinians can do no wrong.

A Leftist's beliefs are all designed to pander to his ego. So when you have an argument with a Leftist, you are not really discussing the facts. You are threatening his self esteem. Which is why the normal Leftist response to challenge is mere abuse.

Because of the fragility of a Leftist's ego, anything that threatens it is intolerable and provokes rage. So most Leftist blogs can be summarized in one sentence: "How DARE anybody question what I believe!". Rage and abuse substitute for an appeal to facts and reason.

Their threatened egos sometimes drive Leftists into quite desperate flights from reality. For instance, they often call Israel an "Apartheid state" -- when it is in fact the Arab states that practice Apartheid -- witness the severe restrictions on Christians in Saudi Arabia. There are no such restrictions in Israel.

Because their beliefs serve their ego rather than reality, Leftists just KNOW what is good for us. Conservatives need evidence.

“Absolute certainty is the privilege of uneducated men and fanatics.” -- C.J. Keyser

"Almost all professors of the arts and sciences are egregiously conceited, and derive their happiness from their conceit" -- Erasmus

THE FALSIFICATION OF HISTORY HAS DONE MORE TO IMPEDE HUMAN DEVELOPMENT THAN ANY ONE THING KNOWN TO MANKIND -- ROUSSEAU

"Seest thou a man wise in his own conceit? there is more hope of a fool than of him" (Proverbs 26: 12). I think that sums up Leftists pretty well.

Eminent British astrophysicist Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington is often quoted as saying: "Not only is the universe stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we can imagine." It was probably in fact said by his contemporary, J.B.S. Haldane. But regardless of authorship, it could well be a conservative credo not only about the cosmos but also about human beings and human society. Mankind is too complex to be summed up by simple rules and even complex rules are only approximations with many exceptions.

Politics is the only thing Leftists know about. They know nothing of economics, history or business. Their only expertise is in promoting feelings of grievance

Socialism makes the individual the slave of the state – capitalism frees them.

MESSAGE to Leftists: Even if you killed all conservatives tomorrow, you would just end up in another Soviet Union. Conservatives are all that stand between you and that dismal fate.

Many readers here will have noticed that what I say about Leftists sometimes sounds reminiscent of what Leftists say about conservatives. There is an excellent reason for that. Leftists are great "projectors" (people who see their own faults in others). So a good first step in finding out what is true of Leftists is to look at what they say about conservatives! They even accuse conservatives of projection (of course).

The research shows clearly that one's Left/Right stance is strongly genetically inherited but nobody knows just what specifically is inherited. What is inherited that makes people Leftist or Rightist? There is any amount of evidence that personality traits are strongly genetically inherited so my proposal is that hard-core Leftists are people who tend to let their emotions (including hatred and envy) run away with them and who are much more in need of seeing themselves as better than others -- two attributes that are probably related to one another. Such Leftists may be an evolutionary leftover from a more primitive past.

Leftists seem to believe that if someone like Al Gore says it, it must be right. They obviously have a strong need for an authority figure. The fact that the two most authoritarian regimes of the 20th century (Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia) were socialist is thus no surprise. Leftists often accuse conservatives of being "authoritarian" but that is just part of their usual "projective" strategy -- seeing in others what is really true of themselves.

"Why should the German be interested in the liberation of the Jew, if the Jew is not interested in the liberation of the German?... We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the present time... In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.... Indeed, in North America, the practical domination of Judaism over the Christian world has achieved as its unambiguous and normal expression that the preaching of the Gospel itself and the Christian ministry have become articles of trade... Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist". Who said that? Hitler? No. It was Karl Marx. See also here and here and here. For roughly two centuries now, antisemitism has, throughout the Western world, been principally associated with Leftism (including the socialist Hitler) -- as it is to this day. See here.

Leftists call their hatred of Israel "Anti-Zionism" but Zionists are only a small minority in Israel

Some of the Leftist hatred of Israel is motivated by old-fashioned antisemitism (beliefs in Jewish "control" etc.) but most of it is just the regular Leftist hatred of success in others. And because the societies they inhabit do not give them the vast amount of recognition that their large but weak egos need, some of the most virulent haters of Israel and America live in those countries. So the hatred is the product of pathologically high self-esteem.

"With their infernal racial set-asides, racial quotas, and race norming, liberals share many of the Klan's premises. The Klan sees the world in terms of race and ethnicity. So do liberals! Indeed, liberals and white supremacists are the only people left in America who are neurotically obsessed with race. Conservatives champion a color-blind society" -- Ann Coulter

Who said this in 1968? "I am not, and never have been, a man of the right. My position was on the Left and is now in the centre of politics". It was Sir Oswald Mosley, founder and leader of the British Union of Fascists

The term "Fascism" is mostly used by the Left as a brainless term of abuse. But when they do make a serious attempt to define it, they produce very complex and elaborate definitions -- e.g. here and here. In fact, Fascism is simply extreme socialism plus nationalism. But great gyrations are needed to avoid mentioning the first part of that recipe, of course.

Politicians are in general only a little above average in intelligence so the idea that they can make better decisions for us that we can make ourselves is laughable

A quote from the late Dr. Adrian Rogers, 1931–2005: "You cannot legislate the poor into freedom by legislating the wealthy out of freedom. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that my dear friend, is about the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it."

A lesson in Australian: When an Australian calls someone a "big-noter", he is saying that the person is a chronic and rather pathetic seeker of admiration -- as in someone who often pulls out "big notes" (e.g. $100.00 bills) to pay for things, thus endeavouring to create the impression that he is rich. The term describes the mentality rather than the actual behavior with money and it aptly describes many Leftists. When they purport to show "compassion" by advocating things that cost themselves nothing (e.g. advocating more taxes on "the rich" to help "the poor"), an Australian might say that the Leftist is "big-noting himself". There is an example of the usage here. The term conveys contempt. There is a wise description of Australians generally here

Heritage is what survives death: Very rare and hence very valuable

Two lines below of a famous hymn that would be incomprehensible to Leftists today ("honor"? "right"? "freedom?" Freedom to agree with them is the only freedom they believe in)

First to fight for right and freedom,
And to keep our honor clean

It is of course the hymn of the USMC -- still today the relentless warriors that they always were.

If any of the short observations above about Leftism seem wrong, note that they do not stand alone. The evidence for them is set out at great length in a MONOGRAPH on Leftism.

You can email me (John Ray) here (Hotmail address). In emailing me, you can address me as "John", "Jon", "Dr. Ray" or "JR" and that will be fine -- but my preference is for "JR"

There are also two blogspot blogs which record what I think are my main recent articles here and here. Similar content can be more conveniently accessed via my subject-indexed list of short articles here or here (I rarely write long articles these days)